Bobo-Dioulasso & the West

The west was never part of the Mossi kingdoms. It was home to peoples organised in villages and clans — the Bobo and Bwa around Bobo-Dioulasso, the Senufo, Gouin, Turka and Karaboro around Banfora, the Lobi, Dagara and Birifor in the south-west — with Muslim traders speaking Dioula, a Mande language, settling in market towns along the routes that carried gold and kola nuts north. Bobo-Dioulasso grew from the Bobo village of Sya beside a Dioula trading quarter, and in the 19th century the region felt the campaigns of the Kénédougou kingdom based at Sikasso, in present-day Mali, and of Samori Touré.

The ruins at Loropéni, in the Sud-Ouest, belong to an older world: stone-walled enclosures thought to date back at least a thousand years and linked to the trans-Saharan gold trade. The Lobi, who arrived later from what is now Ghana, strongly resisted French rule after the conquest of the 1890s, and French forces fought campaigns in the Lobi country into the early 20th century.

Under colonial rule Bobo-Dioulasso became the main commercial town of Upper Volta, especially after the railway from Abidjan reached it in the 1930s. After independence it remained the country's economic capital, while Banfora developed around a large sugar plantation and refinery. In recent years the insurgency has spread into the west.

The west is the most culturally mixed part of Burkina Faso. Dioula is the common language of markets and towns, and Islam and Christianity sit alongside strong traditional religion. Mask societies are central to Bobo and Bwa life: Bobo masks are renowned, and the Bwa are known for their leaf masks and tall plank masks.

Bobo-Dioulasso is a major centre of the country's music, with a strong tradition of balafon, djembe and griot music, and hosts the National Culture Week, a biennial festival of dance, music and theatre. Its old Kibidwé quarter grew from the village founded by Bobo farmers and Dioula traders, and the giant catfish of the sacred pond of Dafra, in the south of the city, receive offerings.

The Senufo around Sindou keep their initiation ceremonies and regard the peaks as a mystical place of protection. In the Lobi country, the dyoro initiation, held every seven years, marks the passage to adulthood, and families live in scattered earthen compounds, many with household shrines. The Lobi are also known for carved wooden figures called bateba.

Bobo-Dioulasso, with around 900,000 people at the 2019 census, is Burkina Faso's second city: greener and more relaxed than Ouagadougou, with shaded avenues and a large central market. Banfora, the capital of the Cascades, has around 110,000 people, and Gaoua, Diébougou, Dano and Orodara are the main smaller towns.

This is the country's breadbasket. The Hauts-Bassins and Cascades grow cotton, maize, rice, sugar cane, fruit and vegetables; mangoes from Orodara and Banfora are an important crop, and cashews, shea and sesame bring in cash. Gold has long been mined in the Lobi country of the Sud-Ouest, and artisanal mining brings money but also land disputes and security problems.

The insurgency has reached the region: some villages near the borders have emptied and displaced families have arrived in the towns. In Bobo-Dioulasso the day still runs from the call to prayer and the moped rush to the market to evenings at the maquis and music bars.

The western diet is broader than the Sahelian north. Tô of maize or sorghum with a sauce of okra, baobab leaves or groundnut remains the staple, but rice is widely grown and eaten, and yams, cassava and plantains are common towards the Ivorian border. Soumbala, the fermented néré-seed condiment, flavours many sauces, and shea butter is used for cooking.

Street food in Bobo and Banfora includes alloco, fried ripe plantain with chilli, and brochettes. Fish from the region's lakes and dams is grilled or fried. Fruit is the region's pride: Orodara is famous for mangoes, and oranges, papayas and cashew fruit fill the markets in season.

Dolo, millet or sorghum beer, is brewed in family courtyards and drunk from calabashes. Bissap hibiscus juice and ginger drinks are everywhere.

In Bobo-Dioulasso, the Grand Mosque is the main sight, a mud-brick building in the Sudano-Sahelian style with wooden beams projecting from its towers, beside the narrow lanes of the Kibidwé quarter. The central market, the old railway station, the Musée communal Sogossira Sanon and the sacred catfish of Dafra complete a visit, and the hippo pool at Bala lies about 60 kilometres from the city.

Around Banfora, the Karfiguéla falls drop over sandstone ledges through woodland, the Domes of Fabédougou are rounded rock formations nearby, and Lake Tengrela has hippos. Further west, the Sindou Peaks rise as a narrow ridge of eroded sandstone needles, with footpaths winding among them and Senufo villages below.

In the south-west, Gaoua is the centre of the Lobi country, with the Musée des Civilisations du Sud-Ouest explaining local architecture, religion and crafts, and traditional earthen compounds in the surrounding villages. The Ruins of Loropéni, near Gaoua, are the stone walls of an old settlement, standing several metres high in places, and were Burkina Faso's first UNESCO World Heritage Site.